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16 April 2012

Sephora & Pantone's Colour Collaboration

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the Big Apple for a work trip. The iconic Times Square with its myriad of neon billboards was an advertising geek's dream and advertising inspiration seemed to be everywhere in NYC. This pop up concept store particularly caught my eye...

Sephora & Pantone Universe: NYC Pop Up Store

I happened to be in town the one week that this collaboration between Sephora and Pantone was alive in the meatpacking district of NYC. The pop-up celebrates the colour of the year for 2012 which is apparently "Tangerine Tango". This left me with all sorts of questions on how one chooses a colour of the year - cue mental images of pantone colour chips with sashes performing a Miss America pagent parade! But the idea is quite clever, Pantone is positioning themselves as the authority on all things colour. Most importantly this means they have the (self appointed) power to inform fashion trends and partnering with brands like Sephora is key to this influence.

Enviable Elements

Friendly experts: Sephora makeup artists were on hand to give free makeovers and offer advice - given that the new season colour is orange/tangerine it's a clever move to make consumers feel comfortable with the products and show the less confident how to work an orange lippy into their makeup collection

Cohesive partnership: a pet peeve of mine is illogical brand partnerships and celebrity endorsements, when two brands combine forces but fail to create more value as a whole than separately. The Sephora and Pantone collaboration makes sense and is not only superficial - everything from the pop-up store design (modeled as a giant Pantone colour book) to the product packaging reflects the partnership.

Integration of technology: There was plenty to see and do while waiting for a makeover at the pop store, on the ends of the store were giant touch screens that you could browse products on and behind each make up station was an iPad so you could share your new look or get friends to come along.

Pop up stores seem to be in vogue at the moment - do you like the allure of a temporary store or prefer a more permanent shopping experience?